Timothy McNair (center) sang last fall in Northwestern U.'s production of "Bastianello," an opera about marriage. When he refused to perform verses by Walt Whitman this spring, he failed his course and might lose his scholarship.

Timothy McNair (center) sang last fall in Northwestern U.'s production of "Bastianello," an opera about marriage. When he refused to perform verses by Walt Whitman this spring, he failed his course and might lose his scholarship.

By Stacey Patton

Walt Whitman, the acclaimed "poet of democracy," made several
racist statements toward the end of his life. He called black
people "baboons" and "wild brutes," said America is "for the
whites," and predicted that in the competition for racial survival,
"The nigger, like the Injun, will be eliminated."

It was statements like those that led a black graduate student
at Northwestern University to protest a requirement of his chorale
course that he perform Howard Hanson's "Song of